As unhappy as some U.S. basketball fans may be at news that the NBA’s New York Knicks decided not match the Houston Rockets’ offer for point guard phenom Jeremy Lin– and some are veryunhappy indeed – at least folks in China will be pleased with result, right? After all, Lin is going to the team that forever won the adoration of Chinese basketball fans by helping homegrown basketballer Yao Ming become a global megastar.

Judging by reaction on Chinese social media sites, not so much.

“Good luck, I guess. In the past, there was a Chinese guy named Yao who was also tricked into wasting years with [Houston],” one user of Sina Corp.’s Weibo microblogging service wrote in reaction to the news, expressing a sentiment widely repeated elsewhere on the site.

Advertisement

The Knicks choose not to match a three-year, $25-million contract offer from Houston — where Yao was an eight-time All-Star but never contended for a championship — that will pay Lin a stunning $15 million in the final year.

Houston was one of two teams that had cut Lin last year before he landed with the Knicks.

New York was widely expected to bring Lin back after the 23-year-old Harvard University graduate keyed a turnaround for the sputtering Knicks with a stunning string of performances in February – including a jaw-dropping 38-point monster of a game against the Los Angeles Lakers – that sent Linsanity sweeping across the globe. Even after it became clear that Houston was going to offer the 6-foot-3 Taiwanese-American a massive contract, many pundits predicted the Knicks would match, if only because of his marketing appeal.

Analysts have argued that Houston, thanks to its experience with Yao, likely has a better understanding than New York of Lin’s off-court value, especially in Asia. That’s a notion not lost on users of Sina Weibo, where Lin boasts more than 2.8 million followers. “The Rockets have tasted the sweetness of having a Chinese element and known the bitterness of losing it,” wrote a Weibo user posting under the name Canglan2010. “This is a business transaction.”

Lin’s father declined to comment when reached by phone on Tuesday. The player’s agent couldn’t be reached.

Lin fans in both Taiwan and mainland China, like their counterparts in the U.S., expressed concerns that the young player’s development could suffer by going to a team with few stars.

“I’m worried the Rockets don’t have as many top-rated players as the Knicks and that might hinder Jeremy from improving further,” said Ian Lee, a 19-year-old student in Taiwan. “But whenever Jeremy goes, Taiwanese will follow and watch.”

Houston undoubtedly had its eye on the China market when it decided to make the offer to Mr. Lin, said Matt Beyer, founder of China-based sports marketing firm Altius Culture. “The investment they made in Yao Ming in terms of his salary they made back tens of times over in sales of merchandise in China,” he said. “This will be a good thing for them.”

It’s difficult to calculate how much an athlete like Yao is worth to his team, although the size of his salary and endorsement deals might provide a clue. In 2003, Yao signed a 10-year endorsement contract with Reebok that was estimated to pay him between $7 million and $10 million a year, and in 2005 he made a total of roughly $15 million from endorsement deals with various companies. In 2010, his final season with the Rockets, Yao was paid $17.7 million in salary.

Mr. Beyer, the first foreigner to be certified as a sports agent in China, dismissed negative reaction on the Chinese Internet as “emotional” and said it wasn’t likely to impact Lin’s popularity or earning power in China in the long run.

“Jeremy Lin is going to sell merchandise no matter what team he’s playing for,” he said, adding that ultimately the player’s success in China will depend on how well he plays.

As proof that Chinese fans won’t lavish attention on a player simply because of his ethnic background Beyer pointed to Yi Jianlian. The Chinese-born power forward entered the NBA to much fanfare in 2007 only to fade quickly into anonymity after failing to impress on the court.

Just how much Lin cares about his marketing potential in the world’s second-largest economy is unclear. Noting the player’s plans to launch a series of basketball camps in China this summer, Beyer said he suspected Lin was more interested in using his fame to improve the quality of Chinese basketball. And with $25 million coming his way over the next three years, he’s not likely to be hurting for cash.

About China Real Time Report

China Real Time Report is a vital resource for an expanding global community trying to keep up with a country changing minute by minute. The site offers quick insight and sharp analysis from the wide network of Dow Jones reporters across Greater China, including Dow Jones Newswires’ specialists and The Wall Street Journal’s award-winning team. It also draws on the insights of commentators close to the hot topic of the day in law, policy, economics and culture. Its editors can be reached at chinarealtime@wsj.com.